USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Westborough > The history of Westborough, Massachusetts. Part I. The early history. By Heman Packard De Forest. Part II. The later history. By Edward Craig Bates > Part 4
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It was a sad day for these pioneers. Five tiny lads gone at a stroke, one to cruel death, the others to a captivity more dreaded than death ! There were grim faces around the firesides that night as the men thought and plotted for rescue and vengeance; and the mothers, poor things, un- likely to get much soothing from the stern-browed men, and accustomed to regard all such calamity, in the Puri- tanic fashion, as the sign of God's ill-will to them, had many a long day of silent pain. The boys were taken to Canada, to wait for ransom, or to be trained in the Indian life and warfare. Measures were taken to rescue them, but without much fruit. Four years later, through the efforts of Colonel Lydius, of Albany, Asher was redeemed by his father, and returned home. He was, however, so broken by the shock he had received at the time of his seizure that he never fully recovered from it. He lived at home until he married, when he removed to Spencer. He was
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EARLY HISTORY OF WESTBOROUGH.
a very eccentric man, " a little teched," as the phrase used to be. He spent a great deal of effort in making a grist- mill on a new plan, so that the upper stone should be fixed, while the lower one revolved. This, he insisted, was the only natural way, for in the human mouth, which was evidently the original corn-mill, it was the lower jaw that did the work. But men laughed quietly at his oddities, for they pitied him. Some remains of the Indian habits which he had gained in his four years life in a wigwam always clung to him. And the fear of the red-men never left him. Daily he dreaded the possibility of their approach; and long after all danger had passed away, he built stockades, and tried to be prepared in case of an attack. He had a son Asher, born in 1734, who died in Spencer in 1823, in his ninetieth year; and he has, or had a few years ago, descendants still living there.
Adonijah, his younger brother, was never redeemed, but grew up in Canada, though he did not remain all his life among the Indians. He became sufficiently one of them, however, to bear among them the name of Asaundugoo- ton. Afterward he married twice, - first a Frenchwoman, and the second time a Dutchwoman, -and became the owner of a good farm near Montreal, on the north side of the St. Lawrence.
The two sons of Edmund Rice, Silas and Timothy, grew up in the Indian wigwams, lost their mother-tongue, and became essentially savages. Of Silas we know nothing, except that he married an Indian squaw and was called Tookanowras. But Timothy, the seven-year-old boy, had qualities of his own, inherited from a sturdy generation, which could not be consigned to oblivion even in an Indian wigwam, or under the rather discouraging name of Oughtzorongoughton. He was adopted in the place
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INDIAN TROUBLES.
of his own son, who had died, by a chief of the Cana- wagas, a tribe of the Iroquois converted by the French Jesuit missionaries, and settled near Montreal; and thus · had a better opportunity than often fell to the lot of a captive. The Rev. Ebenezer Parkman wrote in 1769, after some acquaintance with the persons and the facts : -
" Timothy had much recommended himself to the Indians by his superior talents, his penetration, courage, strength, and war- - like spirit, for which he was much celebrated, - as was evident to me from conversation with the late Sachem Kendrick and Mr. Kellog when they were in Massachusetts. He himself, in process of time, came to see us. By the interposition of Colonel Lydius and the captive Tarbell, who was carried away from Groton, a letter was sent me, bearing date July 23, 1740, certifying that if one of their brethren would go up to Albany, and be there at a time specified, they would meet him there, and one of them at least would come hither to visit his friends in New England. The chief abovesaid came, and the said Mr. Tarbell with him, as interpreter and companion. They arrived here September 15th. They viewed the house where Mr. Rice dwelt, and the place from which the children were captivated, of both which he retained a clear remembrance, as he did likewise of several elderly people then living, though he had forgot our language. [It was thirty-six years after the capture.] His Excellency Governor Belcher sent for them, who accordingly waited on him at Boston. They also visited Tarbell's relatives at Groton ; then returned to us on their way back to Albany and Canada. Colonel Lydius, when at Boston not long since, said this Rice was the chief who made the speech to General Gage which we had in our public prints, in behalf of the Cana- wagas, soon after the reduction of Montreal."
The Rev. Peter Whitney adds that "When the old In- dian sachem Ountassogo, chief of the Canawagas, at the conference with Governor Belcher at Deerfield, made a visit to Boston, he stopped a while in Westborough ; and Asher Rice saw him, and knew him to be one of
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EARLY HISTORY OF WESTBOROUGH.
the Indians who rushed down the hill when he was taken by them."
Another Indian raid occurred three years later, on the 18th of August, 1707, on the farm of Samuel Goodnow, who had settled on Stirrup Brook, on the north road from Northborough to Marlborough. Mary Goodnow, his daughter, and Mrs. Mary Fay, wife of Gershom Fay, whose farm was near by, were gathering herbs in a field, when twenty-four Indian warriors rushed from the woods. Mrs. Fay ran for the house of Mr. Goodnow, which was a garrison-house, and reached it safely. Mary Goodnow, being lame, was overtaken and made captive. The neigh- borhood was at once aroused, and so vigorous an attack was made that the Indians were quickly routed, and ran, leaving their twenty-four packs behind them. Enraged, however, by their defeat, and finding that the girl's lame- ness prevented her rapid flight with them, they killed and scalped her a few rods beyond Stirrup Brook. Her body was found by her friends shortly afterward, and buried where it fell. Mrs. Fay, on reaching the garrison- house, had found only one man there; but by their heroic exertions, she loading and he firing, they kept the Indians at bay until help arrived.
On account of these recurring dangers the town of Marlborough in 1711 increased the number of garrison- houses to twenty-six, assigning to each a certain number of families in the vicinity, who were, in case of danger, to take refuge in them and defend them. Among these were the houses of Thomas and Edmund Rice, both within the limits of the present Westborough. Those of Samuel Goodnow and Thomas Brigham, which were also among those garrisoned, were within the precincts of the original town.
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INDIAN TROUBLES.
The spot where Nahor Rice was killed is still known approximately, and the grave of Mary Goodnow in Northborough definitely. It would help to preserve the early memorials of New England history if these spots were marked by a rude bowlder with the name cut in deep characters, and held sacred thereafter against the encroachments of the too irreverent enterprise of modern times.
CHAPTER IV.
1711-1723.
INCORPORATION, AND BEGINNINGS OF TOWN LIFE.
TN 1713 the peace of Utrecht put a temporary check on Indian depredations. The loss of the colonies, from 1675 to 1713, is estimated at nearly six thousand men ; and yet they were by no means crippled. Still less was the brave pioneer spirit broken. No sooner was the im- mediate danger over than their enterprise broke forth again in the effort to establish new towns and push civili- zation westward; and the years immediately following the establishment of peace were marked by an unusual num- ber of applications for incorporation. Among these was one from certain inhabitants of Marlborough, signed by Isaac Amsden and sixty-six others, which resulted soon after in the incorporation of Westborough.
This petition was probably presented to the General Court at the session of 1716. The document itself is lost; but an undated plan of the territory, which probably ac- companied it, is in the archives at the State House. The petition asked for the erection of a new town out of the western part of Marlborough, and including some eighteen hundred acres west of Marlborough, afterward assigned to Shrewsbury. It immediately drew out a counter petition from John Brigham and thirty others, received in Court Nov. 23, 1716, praying for " ungranted
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INCORPORATION.
lands between Lancaster, Sutton, Marlborough, Worcester, Hassanamisco, and Bridgham's farm, ... to be erected into a town." This was the first movement toward the incorporation of Shrewsbury. As these two petitions in- terfered with each other, it was ordered that Mr. Brigham and his fellow-petitioners should prepare a plan of the land desired, and that the Marlborough petition should be continued to the next session, in order that it might be determined more clearly what measures would best promote the public welfare.
In the May following, John Brigham had his plan ready ; and Samuel Thaxter, John Chandler, and Jonathan Rem- ington, Esq., were appointed a committee of the General Court "to view the land and inquire into the circumstances of the petitioners," etc., and to see "whether, if the petition of the Inhabitants of Marlborough for a Part of the said land be granted, the Remainder of the said tract will not be thereby disadvantaged for a Township." This was quite a necessary inquiry, for the land-seekers of that time had a shrewd eye to their own interests. The committee reported June 19, favoring the grant for Shrewsbury, -
"provided the Court allow to the Westerly part of Marlborough a line to be continued from the Westerly bounds of Lieut. Rice's farm, until it meets with Fay's farm, and then to bound by said Fay's farm according to the lines thereof, until it meet with Sutton line on the Southward ; and from the Northwest corner of said Rice's land to run upon a strait line to a heap of stones, called Warner's corner, which is the most easterly corner of Haynes' farm, by the country road; and including therein the land which the report of Samuel Thaxter, Esq., & dated June 19, proposes should be laid to them, and present it to this Court for allowance."
In the House of Representatives, Oct. 31, 1717, the petition was read, -
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EARLY HISTORY OF WESTBOROUGH.
"Shewing that a confiderable Number of the Inhabitants of the said Town have settled themselves in the Westerly Part of said Town, where they are at a considerable distance from the Place of publick Worship, and ill accommodated to attend it in the said Place, and therefore Praying that the said Westerly Part may be fett off as a Precinct or Township, and certain lands lying near them taken into the said Precinct or Township."
It was -
" Ordered that the Petitioners prepare a Plat, taken by an able Surveyor, of the Land which they desire, and [which ] the town of Marlborough agree should be sett off & made a feparate Town- ship, including therein the Land which the report of Samuel Thaxter, Esq., &c., Dated June 19, proposes should be laid to them, and present it to this Court for Allowance."
A drawing of the territory desired had already been presented to the Court with the petition of Isaac Amsden ; but it was not drawn with exactness, and it claimed some eighteen hundred acres more than the committee recom- mended the Court to grant. A new survey was made by William Ward, correcting the boundaries and conforming to the committee's report, a copy of which is here shown. This plan represents the exact area originally incorporated. The record of incorporation is as follows: -
MONDAY, Nov. 18, 1717.
A plat of the Westerly Part of Marlborough, called Chauncy, presented by the Committee appointed by the General Court to view & make Report of the said Land unto the said Court.
In the House of Representves, Nov. 15, Resolved that the Tract of Land contained and described in this Plat be erected into a Township, & called by the Name of Westborough. The Inhabitants to have and enjoy all Powers, Privileges, & Immu- nities whatsoever, as other towns have and do enjoy, and that the ungranted Lands lying within the same (Containing about Three Thousand Acres), be granted to the said Inhabitants,
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BEGINNINGS OF TOWN LIFE.
They paying for the same as the Committee, appointed by this Court this session for settling the Lands of the new Township that is contiguous [Shrewsbury], shall order. And that out of the said lands there be reserved a suitable and convenient Lott for the first settled Minister, Which Lott the said Committee shall sett out.
Sent up for Concurrence. Read and Concurred. Con- sented to,
SAMLL SHUTE.
This was the hundredth town in Massachusetts.
The committee to whom was referred the matter of compensation, consisting of Samuel Thaxter, Jonathan Remington, and Francis Fulham, reported, Jan. 20, 1719, "that the inhabitants of Westboro pay for the land granted by the Court, besides 100 acres laid out for a minister, amounting, besides farms, to 2207 a., £80 lawful money. To be paid, in 4 equal payments, on or before the first day of June, 1723."
So from this time there is a Westborough in fact as well as in prospect, and the days of "Chauncy " are numbered. No more slow toiling over the plain and up the hill to the Marlborough meeting-house on Sundays and town-meeting days. The settlers of this area would have a rallying place of their own, and employ their own preacher and levy their own taxes. They were not, indeed, looking for- ward, after the fashion of the modern town in the West, to a speedy arrival of long trains of immigrants, or to the erection of sumptuous court-houses and seven-storied hotels, or to an immediate rise in the value of corner lots that would make the original holders of land wealthy while they slept. The conditions of pioneering then and now had little in common. The buildings they were to raise were of the homeliest; the growth of the town would be very slow, - for more than thirty years the number of
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EARLY HISTORY OF WESTBOROUGH.
families would not exceed one hundred; nevertheless, with the means at their disposal and the modest expectations they cherished, they had made a good step forward, and felt the thrill of new hopes and freshened ambitions.
According to a statement by the Rev. Ebenezer Park- man, the first minister of Westborough,1 "the first families of Westboro were twenty-seven; all the first settlers were about forty." On the fly-leaf of his Church-records he has recorded the names of the first inhabitants as follows: -
Thomas Rice.
Thomas Newton.
Charles Rice.
Josiah Newton.
John Fay.
Hezekiah Howe.
Samuel Fay.
Daniel Warrin.
Thomas Forbush.
Increase Ward.
David Maynard.
Benjamin Townsend.
Edmund Rice.
Nathaniel Oakes.
David Brigham.
Samuel Goodnow.
Capt. Joseph Byles.
Gershom Fay.
James Bradish.
Simeon Howard.
John Pratt.
John Pratt, Jr.
Adam Holloway. Thomas Ward.
Joseph Wheeler.
Young Men. - John Maynard, James Maynard, Aaron For- bush, Jacob Amsden, Eleazer Beaman, and Jotham Brigham.
This list gives but twenty-five heads of families; the re- maining two were perhaps Isaac Tomblin and James Eager.
It would be very interesting to determine the relative situation of each of these first families of Westborough ; but it can be done only partially.2 Thomas Rice, with his son Charles, were, as we have seen, a little south- west of the village. John Fay and his brother Samuel were on the "Fay farm," -the latter on the Miletus Henry place, the former on the Austin Howe place. The
1 Mass. Hist. Soc. Rec., Ist series, vol. x. 2 See Appendix.
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BEGINNINGS OF TOWN LIFE.
exact spot where Thomas Forbush settled, I am unable to determine; his brother Jonathan, in whose family the name became changed to Forbes, is not mentioned in this list of first settlers, but was here very early, joining the Church in 1727; he lived at first near Stirrup Brook. David Maynard's farm was somewhere near the line of the present Northborough Road; and John Maynard, his nephew, who married in 1719, settled down near the first meeting-house. Edmund Rice was also near the old meeting-house. David Brigham held the farm which now constitutes the State hospital grounds, and five hundred acres besides; his house stood about sixty rods east of the hospital buildings. Capt. Joseph Byles was south of Chauncy Pond. John Pratt was assigned to Thomas Rice's garrison, and lived on the "old mill road." Thomas Newton is reputed to have held the Josiah W. Blake farm. Daniel Warren was on the eastern border of " the Plain," and his farm included the land of the late George Harrington, Seleucus Warren, S. A. Harrington, and perhaps more. Increase Ward was in Northborough, on the river, where he had a saw-mill. Benjamin Towns- end was near Chauncy Pond. Nathaniel Oakes lived in Northborough, on the farm afterward owned by John Martyn and Peter Whitney. Samuel Goodnow lived just west of Stirrup Brook, on the road to Marlborough. Gershom Fay was near by. Simeon Howard was near Northborough village. (Allen says "near the Morse house, on land of Mr. Asa Fay.") Adam Holloway was in the north part of Northborough. Thomas Ward was on the Asaph Rice place; Isaac Tomblin on the farm of Dea. Isaac Davis; Joseph Wheeler on the southern declivity of Ball's Hill.
The vicinity of Chauncy Pond was both the natural
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EARLY HISTORY OF WESTBOROUGH.
centre of the area of the new town, and also the most thickly settled portion. Here, for the first thirty years of its history, is laid the scene of chief interest. Nearly a hundred years later, when the great lines of stages made the turnpike busy, and Wessonville Tavern became the focus of activity, this same old centre seemed about to regain its prominence. But the necessity that the public buildings should be in the most convenient place for all the inhabitants, and later the construction of the railroad, have determined the permanent situation of the village where it is to-day. Standing on the pleasant slopes to the westward of the old meeting-house, one feels that something of picturesqueness and beauty has been given up in the change. But remembering the advantages to a town of having one village at its natural centre instead of half a dozen scattered over its territory, producing divided interests and jealousies, one is more easily recon- ciled to the exchange of picturesqueness for utility, and of the ancient Chauncy for the modern Westborough.
A month after the incorporation of the town, the first warrant was issued for a town-meeting, which was held on the 15th of January, 1718. The quaint record is herewith literally transcribed : -
"firstly, Refolved to Build a meetting house forth with.
" 2ly. Voted, the meeting house to Be fourty foot Long, and thirty foot wid, and Eighteen foot Betwen Joints.
"3ly. Voted to Choufe a Committee to proced to Getting timber as may Be nefefsary, forth with to Be procured.
" 4ly. John Pratt, Sener, Thomas Newton, and Daniel Warrin wear chofen a Committee for the work a Bove fd, and to Deter- mine the wages for men whom thay see meet to Imploy.
" 5ly. Voted to Chufe Committee to wait on the Revd Mr. Elmer, and to treat to Continue to Be our minifter, and to pro- ceed for his Comfortable Subfestenc, As thay Shal See meet.
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BEGINNINGS OF TOWN LIFE.
"6ly. Isaac Tomblin, Thomas Newton, John fay, are Choufen a Commete for the work of the fifth uote.
" yly. John fay was Chosen Town Clark.
" 8ly. Thomas Rice, Sener, Chose the first Seelect man ; John fay and Semeion Hayward, Sener, chosen Seelectmen ; lastly, Dauied manayard chosen Constable."
The first action of the town was thus mainly in the interest of its ecclesiastical institutions. It illustrates the uniform practice of the time. It was among the early laws of the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay, approved by King William in 1692, that every town should be constantly provided with " an able, learned, and ortho- dox minister, or ministers, of good conversation, to dis- pense the word of God to them." This merely expressed the profound conviction of the leaders in the colony that religion was the corner-stone of civil life. But they went farther than that. Sixty years before the passage of the law just cited, the General Court had ordered that "no man shall be admitted to the freedom of this body politic but such as are members of some of the Churches within the limits of the same." It was not only religion, but a Church, on which the State was to be built; and not only a Church, but a particular form of Church, -that form, namely, which these reformers had in vain endeavored to be allowed to maintain in their English homes. This looks to us narrow ; and having seen what this mingling of Church and State led to at a later day, we are tempted to be unduly severe on the founders of the nation for their illiberal ideas. But it was a natural action under the circumstances. They had come to see, in their English homes, that a great danger to the kingdom of God lay in the organized and complicated system of order and worship which the Eng- lish Church, forgetting how recently it had itself sprung
4
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EARLY HISTORY OF WESTBOROUGH.
forth as a protest against the same tyranny in the Church of Rome, had sought to impose upon all reli- gious life within its borders. Our fathers had sacrificed the comforts of civilization for a home in the wilderness in order that they might be free, themselves and their de- scendants, from this tyranny of a system. They felt that in order to keep the danger from encroaching, when it was least expected, they must bar it out by the firm es- tablishment of the simpler forms which they believed to spring from the New Testament. They did not see that in making conformity to this order a condition of participa- tion in the affairs of State they were only changing the difficulty, not relieving it. They had not yet conceived the modern idea of religious freedom; they could not, -such conceptions are the growth of ages. So for a long time membership in the Congregational Churches was the con- dition of civil influence; until, as was inevitable, men of political ambition became unscrupulous as to the means they used to get membership in the Churches, in order that they might vote and hold office. But we should be unjust to charge these consequences of their action upon the men whose only aim was freedom from those abuses of religious authority of which they had had experience. Their struggles for liberty have given us our best privi- leges of to-day; their mistakes were corrected by the course of events as time went on.
The second town-meeting was held on the third day of February, Thomas Forbush moderator, at which a com- mittee was appointed -
"to Go on with the work of the metting house untill it Be Raised, Covered, and closed ; viz., Namly : Thomas Rice, John Pratt, Thomas Newton, Daniel Warrin, William Holloway, chosen to Do the work Be for mentioned. Voted to Raise eighty Pounds in
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BEGINNINGS OF TOWN LIFE.
work, Boards, and shingles, and claboards. Voted yt the above sd. Committee shall have three Shilings per Day untill they have worked out their perticular Reats; and allso y other Laboring men shall have 25-6ª-per Day ; also a man with his team of four oxen, six shilings."
February 14th, Thomas Rice, Samuel Forbush, John Fay, Thomas Newton, and James Bradish were appointed a committee "to wait upon the General Cort's Committee to Sett out the minister's Lot." The proprietors of Marl- borough had already, as we have seen, on the 13th of March, 1710, granted a portion of land "for the benefit of the Ministry in the westerly end of Marlborough, called Chauncy Village." The committee appointed at this time seems to have made, in conjunction with the committee of the Legislature, an additional assignment of one hun- dred acres, in a narrow strip running across the town from east to west. This hundred acres was assigned to Mr. Daniel Elmer, to whom reference is made in the fifth article of the first town-meeting, and who was the first minister of Westborough, though never ecclesiastically settled. Mr. Parkman makes the following record of his connection with the town : -
"Mr. Daniel Elmer, a candidate for the ministry from Con- necticut River, preached here several years, and received a call from the people; but there arose dissension, and though he built upon the farm which was given for the first settled minister, and dwelt upon it, yet by the advice of an ecclesiastical council he desisted from preaching, and a quitclaim being given him [by Mr. Parkman, dated Oct. 28, 1724] of the farm, he sold it, and with his family removed to Springfield in 1724. He was afterwards settled at Cohanzy, in the Jerseys, and, I suppose, died there."
The history of the connection of Mr. Elmer with the town is very meagre. There is nothing between the vote
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EARLY HISTORY OF WESTBOROUGH.
of the town January 15, appointing a committee to confer with him, and make arrangements for his comfortable support, and this sketch by Mr. Parkman, unless it be a hint in the Diary of Judge Sewall, who, passing through here on his way from Springfield to Boston, dining at Leicester, Wednesday, July 25, 1718, and riding from there to Marlborough in the afternoon, wrote in his Journal the next day, "Have a Fast at Westborough this day, in order to settle a Minister."
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